Environmental Sciences Proceedings, Volume 11, Issue 1

District heating networks are considered to be a key element for the decarbonization of Europe. The RELaTED project seeks to contribute to the decarbonization of these infrastructures with the demonstration of low temperature district heating network...

Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) can help the European Union (EU) in accelerating the cost-effective renovation of existing building stock. However, there are many risks and barriers that can inhibit the application of EPC. These barriers include...

Energy efficiency in the building sector is a priority of the EU Commission to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Renovation of the existing buildings, which are currently responsible for approximately 40% of EU energy consumption and 36% of the gree...

Promoting public participation in urban processes has long been a key issue in discussions about urban governance. However, despite the advantages of more progressive and inclusive city governance, participatory budgeting (PB) often faces challenges...

This report summarizes the conceptual framework and the technical implementation of a BIM-based user-friendly application to gather inhabitant’s input in the context of renovation projects developed in the European funded project BIM-SPEED. It...

New energy communities that produce, store, trade and distribute renewable energy guided by innovative digital platforms are currently emerging in many EU member states. Expectations about these communities and their contribution to a ‘just eng...

It is assumed by the projects demonstrating Positive Energy District (PED) concepts in cities across Europe that citizens should want and need to be involved in the development of new energy concepts, such as PEDs for these concepts to be deployed su...

This article presents preliminary results that assess the effect of electromobility in an archetype Positive Energy District (PED). We present a PED modelling approach that represents renewable energy generation, an energy storage system, the consump...

Cost–benefit analysis is a common evaluation method applied to assess whether an energy system is economically feasible as well as the economic viability of energy investment for the energy transition of a pre-existing energy system. This paper...

In this paper, an innovative hybrid modelling technique based on machine learning and building dynamic simulation is presented for the prediction of indoor thermal comfort feedback from occupants in an office building in Le Bourget-du-Lac, Chamb&eacu...

The building sector plays an important role in the transition to a climate-neutral society. The international interest in low, zero energy, or zero-emission buildings has grown as a potential means for this transition. A more ambitious step from zero...

This paper presents an assessment of the impacts of the different tools implemented within the inteGRIDy project through the analysis of key performance indicators (KPIs) that appropriately reflect the technical and economic domains of the inteGRIDy...

Investing in energy efficiency (EE) could play a crucial role in transitioning to a future economy, where sustainable growth will be the centre of attention. To reach such EE investments, a mobilisation of capital through the targeted use of funds, i...

Cities are currently dealing with the sustainable transition from carbon-based economies to carbon-neutral cities. The H2020 mySMARTLife project seeks to demonstrate innovative technologies through the implementation of about 150 innovative energy so...

Developing business models for energy communities means that community-based values and goals are to be taken seriously. This paper presents how several European Horizon projects attempt to do so, highlighting the key issues and challenges encountere...

In this workshop, we discussed the targets, current status, and future plans of 10 Horizon 2020 projects—ARISE, BUSLeague, TRAIN4SUSTAIN, BIMzeED, SEEtheSkills, HP4ALL, INSTRUCT, PRO-Heritage, The nZEB Roadshow, and CraftEdu—about how to...

Energy communities organise collective and citizen-driven energy actions that will help pave the way for a clean energy transition, while moving citizens to the forefront. The energy market is rapidly transforming and so is the role of the consumer....

Positive energy districts (PEDs) consist of more than three interconnected buildings that annually produce more renewable energy than what is consumed within the district boundaries. To achieve the annual surplus of energy, implementation of renewabl...

Energy retrofit strategies for buildings represent a major challenge for the achievement of EU decarbonization goals. In 2002, the Energy Performance of Building Directive introduced energy certificates to measure and compare building energy performa...

Based on a sociological fieldwork study (on-site observations, about a hundred interviews and five participatory workshops) in the three French, German and Swiss parts of the Upper Rhine Region (URR), this paper focuses on citizen energy cooperatives...

This workshop brought together a selection of H2020 EU-funded projects to offer an overview of different tools used for the optimization of local energy networks and demonstrate how to facilitate grid interaction from the perspective of technology le...

The cluster on Enabling Technologies in the framework of the Fast Track on Energy Communities workshop held in Rome during the Sustainable Places 2021 conference presented a series of H2020 projects and their innovative technological solutions to fac...

The retrofitting of the existing building stock is one of the most important goals to be pursued to meet European targets. In this context, the RenoZEB project has developed a modular methodology for the deep retrofitting of buildings, which is enabl...

This paper is related to the H2020 project EN-TRACK, dedicated to developing a platform for gathering data on the performance of energy efficiency investments in buildings. The project aims to collect and harmonize data from different sources and pro...

Although the building sector builds and renovates objects, the construction industry is currently due for a digital renovation. In this paper, we provide insight into the status of BIM adoption in North Macedonia as a step towards the digital transfo...

The integration of renewable energy sources is one of the principal issues of the electric power system. The ebalance-plus project to achieve this goal will implement and test a management energy platform and new business models. Such solutions will...

The emerging power systems will be proliferated by different distributed generation sources and storage facilities. The adequate modeling of these novel facilities, and power systems in general, is of fundamental importance for the evolution of power...

This research focused on the development of a Digital Model (DM) of a production line at a medical device company, with the objective of providing decision support to stakeholders based on their energy consumption. This model aims to reduce energy co...

Unlike other interventions for the improvement of energy efficiency, in the case of the application of prefabricated elements in deep renovations, there is a certain lack of knowledge on the part of potential clients or even technical staff. This art...

Innovative solutions to de-risk investments in energy efficiency projects, which the EU’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2050.

Positive energy districts (PEDs) are seen as a promising pathway to facilitating energy transition. PEDs are urban areas composed of different buildings and public spaces with local energy production, where the total annual energy balance must be pos...

The implementation of Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (NZEB) renovation packages in Europe needs to be accelerated to meet the decarbonisation goals. To achieve this level of performance, building renovation strategies should shift towards industrialise...

The calculation of the energy balance at the district level is complex since it includes a diverse set of loads, technologies, energy carriers, trading interactions between users and external grids (power, district heating/cooling, gas, etc.) and ass...